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Photos stolen from NH art exhibit

2009-06-26T20:28:27Z

Police say a significant number of photographs have been stolen from an exhibit at the Kimball-Jenkins Estate in Concord, N.H.

NAGPRA complaint against UMass

2009-06-24T20:56:00Z

Gale Courey Toensing for Indian Country Today reports on a NAGPRA complaint against the University of Masachusetts:

A complaint against the University of Massachusetts Amherst, claiming violations of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is under investigation and will be heard at a Review Committee meeting in the fall.

The complaint was filed jointly by Tribal Historic Preservation Officers Cheryl Andrews-Maltais of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, Aquinnah; John Brown III of the Narragansett Indian Tribe; and Sherry White of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians in May 2008. Andrews-Maltais has since been elected chairwoman of her tribe. . . .

The complaint says that UMass Amherst has violated NAGPRA by failing to respond to the tribes’ request for repatriation of human remains from the Connecticut River Valley that are in its possession, and failing to consult with the tribes.

The joint complaint also says the university failed to publish a complete inventory of the human remains and other items of cultural patrimony in its possession, and claims the remains from the Connecticut River Valley listed in its partial inventory are “culturally unaffiliated” even while admitting that the three tribes had a historical presence in and historical ties to the area, and that they are the only federally recognized tribes with standing to claim the remains.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

LACMA ditches old masters

2009-06-29T18:34:30Z

new york. A cache of paintings from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art boosted Sotheby’s 4 June ...

The Long and short of it (UPDATED)

2009-06-22T01:59:00Z

The big news just before the weekend was that the city of Long Beach was, according to an LA Times headline, "threatening" the Long Beach Museum of Art with the "sale of artwork."

According to the Times, the city owns the museum and 1,400 works of art acquired prior to 1985. In 1999, the museum borrowed money for construction of a new two-story exhibition pavilion. The city agreed to be responsible for the bond debt if the museum couldn't pay it back. Now, with the "chronically deficit-ridden" museum apparently unable to pay off the debt, and the city's own budget deficit at around $20 million, one city councilman was quoted as saying "all options will remain on the table until the bond is paid off."

LA Times art critic Christopher Knight zoomed right past repulsive to "Stalin-esque."

The Deaccessioning Blog says "if this doesn't prove my point I don't know what will. Any institution that is 'critically deficit-ridden' should undergo a radical evaluation and transformation, even if closure is the answer."

I want to make a different, more narrow point, and that is that it seems to me the "public trust" argument completely breaks down in a situation like this, where it is the city itself which owns the museum and therefore it is the public, acting through their democratically elected representatives, that seems to be pushing for the sale.

That's assuming anyone is really pushing for the sale. A later story in the Contra Costa Times quotes a city official as saying: "That certainly would be a last resort as far as we're concerned. What we said is that everything is on the table, but selling art is certainly the last option." The story continues:

"The solution of selling off art was the focus of an article in the Los Angeles Times on Friday. 'We're actually a little surprised by the article because we only met with [the museum's executive director] and one of his board members once,' said [the city official]. 'The building (presently owned by the museum foundation), taking over the art (half is owned by the city, half by the foundation) or replacing the foundation and bringing in another entity who can manage the museum - all of those are preferred options. ... The museum really hasn't presented us with any offers at this point. This is in part some of our frustration. We are open to any suggestions or ideas that the museum might have. It's just that they haven't been forthcoming. And so we're now kind of down to the wire where we don't have a whole lot of time left to explore these options."

UPDATE: The Art Market Monitor: "Is Long Beach a Dictatorship?"

"People can interpret them differently, but we did nothing outside the AAMD guidelines"

2009-06-22T01:39:00Z

The LAT's Mike Boehm spoke with Orange County Museum of Art director Dennis Szakacs, who, as far as I can tell, is the first museum director to come under fire for not following the Ellis Rule.

Arts, Briefly: Greece Presses Its Case

2009-06-22T07:22:50Z

The president of Greece, Karolos Papoulias, threw some muscle into his country’s tug of war with Britain over the Elgin Marbles.

Illicit Antiquities and Endangered Animals

2009-06-19T18:55:00Z

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Peter Laufer

thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jason Jones in Iran

I saw this interview of Peter Laufer yesterday, and it highlights the similarities between the illicit art and antiquities trade and the trade in endangered species. Laufer here could just as easily be talking about many antiquities collectors, or as Jon Stewart calls them "supervillains".

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Recession Obsession: Metropolitan Museum and Guggenheim Cut Staffs UPDATED

2009-06-17T06:21:22Z

Metropolitan Museum president Emily Rafferty at Monday's press preview for its "Afghanistan" exhibition

The Guggenheim announced it late yesterday. The Metropolitan Museum will announce it this week: Both museums are significantly reducing their staffs in light of recent financial pressures.

The Guggenheim is cutting 25 positions, across all departments. In response to my queries, the museum's deputy director for external affairs, Eleanor Goldhar, disclosed that only nine people were actually being laid off, none of them from the curatorial staff.

She explained that "some [of those whose positions were eliminated] are being offered jobs for which they are qualified, where a vacancy exists." The Guggenheim is saving $6 million through these staff cuts, but does not intend to cut exhibitions, education or public programs, Goldhar said. She declined to disclose what specific curatorial positions were being eliminated.

As for the Met, a highly placed source there told me yesterday that about 200 staffers had been offered early retirement, and about 100 had accepted, including at least two department heads. A number of the museum's most senior and experienced people were leaving the building, my source said. In addition, he said, other staff members were notified last week that they would be involuntarily terminated. A hiring freeze had previously been instituted.

Harold Holzer, the Met's senior vice president for external affairs, would not discuss any numbers when I contacted him yesterday. (He was not my original source, nor was Met president Emily Rafferty, pictured above.) An official announcement would be made this week, Holzer told me. The job reductions, he said, were still "in process. I can't comment until it's all done." He said that early retirement had been offered to employees who were at least 55 years old, with at least 15 years of service.

On Mar. 12 the Met had announced a major cutback in its retail staff and operations, as well as "the additional need to reduce the rest of its full- and part-time work force by approximately 10% in all other areas of its operations, before the beginning of its next fiscal year, July 1."

That time has come.

UPDATE: The official tally of Met job cuts, announced a few days later than expected, is now here.

Orange County Disposals: Another Forceful Argument for Deaccession Legislation

2009-06-16T17:40:32Z

Granville Redmond, "Silver and Gold," sold in March by the Orange County Museum

Mike Boehm and Christopher Knight of the LA Times own this story, so there's no need for me to rehash all the details of the Orange County Museum's secret sale to an unidentified private collector of 18 of its 20 early 20th century California plein-air paintings for $963,000, which many have said is a bargain price.

What's a bit strange (and unremarked in the Times pieces) is that David Walker, the director of the Nevada Art Museum, where 10 paintings from the sold collection are now on display, told Boehm that the private collector had approached the museum about the show in February. The paintings, according to the Times report, were not sold until late March.

This latest deaccession controversy underscores the lessons that need to be learned from such secret sales (shades of the National Academy). As I have repeatedly argued (most recently, in my deaccession talk at the University of Iowa): If a museum finds that it has no use for museum-quality works in the public domain, it should keep them in the public domain by giving them to another museum that would gladly preserve and display them.

I believe that such works should be transferred, not sold, because they are already part of the public's patrimony and museums shouldn't have to pay to reacquire them for us. But if objects ARE sold, the public must be informed, preferably in advance, using the Indianapolis Museum of Art's online deaccession database as a model of transparency.

In the Orange County case, the museum didn't have to look far to find a willing and eager institutional recipient: As Boehm reports (at the first link, above), the Laguna Art Museum would still dearly love to get its hands on these works, preferably by donation from the new private owner; possibly through purchase.

The secrecy and possible fiduciary lapses related to this disposal are yet another reminder of the urgent need for legislation to regulate deaccessioning. The Brodsky bill, now pending in the New York State Legislature, provides a good (although not perfect) model for how to do it.

Speaking of good role models, many thanks to CultureGrrl Donor 44 from Phoenix!

Bypassing Museums: New Blockbuster Mill in New York

2009-06-15T05:15:14Z

Tut Staircase at the 2007 showing of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia

Who cares if the Metropolitan Museum turned down on principle the chance to take on Egypt's Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs show?

So what if the Field Museum, citing financial belt-tightening, decided not to take Ethopia's Lucy's Legacy show, which includes the 3.2 million-year-old "Lucy" fossil.

Edutainment entrepreneurs are rushing in with evocative atmospherics and glitzy extravaganzas, where conventional museums fear to tread.

Just when serious, scholarly institutions have been obliged to cut back on big blockbuster loan shows due to the recession, along comes Discovery Times Square Exposition, a 60,000-square-foot space in the former NY Times building, masterminded by two for-profit partners, the Discovery Channel and Running Subway Productions. They will bring Lucy and "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition" to their newly renovated digs beginning June 24. They are hoping to bring Tut to New York next year.

What is Running Subway Productions? It's the local New York City promoter of Bodies...the Exhibition, the multi-venue corpse show produced and owned by Premier Exhibitions, Inc. Last year Premier agreed to a settlement with the NY State Attorney General, halting what the AG called the company's "practice of using bodies of undocumented origins....All prior visitors to the New York City Bodies exhibit are eligible for a refund of the price of their ticket....The grim reality is that Premier Exhibitions has profited from displaying the remains of individuals who may have been tortured and executed in China."

Here's how Running Subway Productions describes its "philosophy":

Running Subway re-imagines iconic entertainment properties with universal appeal, thus capitalizing on strong brand equity and built-in PR value.

I've written critically about previous incarnations of the misbegotten blockbuster-mill concept that refuses to die---briefly for Slate and at length for Art in America magazine.

When the Metropolitan Museum declined to be a venue for the currently circulating King Tut show, the museum's then director, Philippe de Montebello, declared:

This is an exhibition being circulated by a group of artifacts arrangers, a commercial for-profit group [Anschutz Entertainment Group]. It is an exhibition that is dominated by lucre and the need to make make colossal sums of money for the...circulators and for the Egyptian Department of Antiquities.

As a business plan, in terms of what it would have involved for the Metropolitan Museum to do the show, it would have involved making an exception for reasons that we did not think were cogent enough---a rule that we believe is right of not charging for special exhibitions. We also like to have a certain degree of control and curatorial oversight...and, all the way around, decided that this was not the right thing to do.

According the the Discovery Times Square Exposition's press release, the new 60,000-square-foot space in the former NY Times building will present objects "in dramatic immersive environments." Alluring artifacts and scholarship just aren't enough. Bring on the "interactive experience of learning through iconic subjects."

We can only hope that the exhibitions' labels and wall text, if any, make more sense than this statement in the press release by Tom Cosgrove, COO of Discovery Channel:

As the number one non-fiction media across the globe, Discovery Times Square Exposition provides a strong growth opportunity for us to extend our reach to the streets of New York City.

What does it mean, we wonder, to be "the number one non-fiction media across the globe"? I've always preferred to regard museum exhibitions as educational and cultural experiences, not "immersive environments" and corporate "growth opportunities."

I just hope the new venue's "exclusive retail shop" carries those must-have Tut Tissue Boxes!

Speaking of crass commercialism, would someone please click my "Donate" button? CultureGrrl has lately reverted to no-profit status. I may soon resort to creating the CultureGrrl Merchandise Line---the poison pen, the hot seat?

Latest Round in the Elgin Marbles Battle: Greeks Reject British Offer

2009-06-12T18:08:14Z

A 2008 mock-up of copies (left) of the Parthenon Marbles in the New Acropolis Museum

It's another skirmish in the Elgin Marble Wars, this coming almost a week before the June 20 opening of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.

On Wednesday, British Museum spokeswoman Hannah Boulton reiterated on Greek Skai Radio an offer previously made by the museum's director, Neil MacGregor.

Agence France Presse reports

The museum could consider loaning the Marbles to Greece for three months. But Greece would have to recognise the museum's ownership rights to the sculptures, she [Boulton] said.

The Greeks have previously expressed willingness to disregard the question of who owns what, so long as the British dispatched their portion for longterm display. Presumably a three-month loan doesn't qualify. It's also a ridiculously short stint, given the enormous cost and logistical challenges of such a monumental art-transport undertaking.

The new Greek culture minister, Antonis Samaras, appears to be taking a harder line than those who had said that the issue of legal ownership was less important than the marbles' presence in Athens. Samaras issued this statement in response to the latest British offer:

The government, as any other Greek government would have done in its place, is obliged to turn down the offer. This is because accepting it would legalise the snatching of the Marbles and the monument's carving-up 207 years ago.

Hard feelings aside, the British Museum has accepted an invitation to send a representative to the opening of the Bernard Tschumi-designed museum, where the top floor will display the Greek-owned Parthenon Marbles, leaving gaps where the London-based marbles belong in the frieze.

CultureGrrl will not be attending the opening. I did receive a save-the-date but no invitation followed. I posted a photo essay on the then-unfinished museum in March 2008, when I was an invited speaker at an international cultural property conference held there.

Here's what I then wrote about the installation plans for the marbles, which involved installing fake plaster replicas of the missing marbles in sequence with the authentic Athens-owned slabs:

The planners of the New Acropolis Museum had a brilliant idea for display of the Parthenon Marbles [leaving gaps for the missing marbles]. Then they improved upon it [installing replicas of the missing marbles, veiled with scrims]. Now they've ruined it.

I don't know if they've rethought this, nor do I know whether the New Acropolis Museum at last has a director. Last time I asked, less than three months ago, I was told that the news of the director would be published on the museum's website at the time of the appointment. The museum's news page has not, at this writing, been updated since February.

OCMA to journalists: Leave us alone.

2009-06-16T17:37:26Z

Wow: Orange County Museum of Art of Art spokesperson ~~hangs up on~~ "refused to offer details" to Orange County Register journalist, director's quote must be read to be believed. (Ya think the museum knows it goofed?) [via, updated to reflect changes at linked-to post]

Why the OCMA/AAMD blunder bears watching

2009-06-16T12:55:31Z

In the current economic/non-profit environment, arts journalists are keeping an eye out for any sign of financial distress at once-sound non-profits, any sign of sector-wide degeneration. (So far the troubled art museums that have been in the news, notably MOCA and the Corcoran, have had financial problems of long standing.) So here's why the OCMA situation bears continued watching: OCMA's bizarre sale has given us reason to wonder if the museum doesn't just have an ethical problem, but if it has financial problems too.

Simply: There is no clear reason why OCMA had to deaccession 18 paintings for dimes on the dollar. (Unless it's to pay for the world's most annoying Flash animation, ha ha.) The museum's 'reason,' that it wanted to keep the paintings in an Orange County collection, is pure balderdash. Non-profits have a fiduciary responsibility to themselves and to their missions (in this case, to their accessioning funds), not to local collectors.

Which brings us to the latest: In today's LAT Mike Boehm finds several other dealers astonished that OCMA bumbled its way toward leaving millions of dollars on the table. A sound deaccessioning process might have led the museum to a transparent process, let alone a healthier art market. But OCMA apparently felt compelled to have a garage sale, and right away. So why now, and at that price?

We still don't know. But it's a key question, one that no one has answered satisfactorily. (For what it's worth: OCMA is not one of America's wealthier art museums. Its program is more developed than its finances. The museum doesn't make its annual report available online (grrr...), but according to its most recent tax filing its budget was balanced. It's endowment is in the low double-digits (in millions), which isn't much but OCMA isn't feeding on itself the way MOCA did either.)

So if OCMA is healthy -- and becaue of the museum's rash actions that has become an 'if' -- why is the director of the industry apologist, the Association of Art Museum Directors, leaping to OCMA's defense even though OCMA plainly violated AAMD's guidelines on deaccessioning? Is this the first sign of AAMD making excuses for a troubled institution? Or just AAMD bumbling?

There are still lots of unanswered questions here. This story's not over.

Related: Christopher Knight on the relationship between one of the ex-OCMA paintings and Charlie Chaplin.

Rose board chair Jonathan Lee updates

2009-06-12T12:48:31Z

ArtTactic has a podcasted interview with Rose board chair Jonathan Lee.

Art Forgery in Australia

2009-06-09T03:09:00Z

Australia's Four Corners has aired a piece on art forgery in Australia today titled "FAKE!":

Reporter Quentin McDermott tells how up to ten per cent of art that's resold across Australia could be problematic. This crisis of confidence has led art lovers to demand that any fake unfairly traded should be destroyed or registered, to avoid it being traded again.

It's a practice as old as art itself. A gifted painter takes a major artwork and reproduces it, or a variation on it. No harm in that, provided it's clear that it's not the real thing. Unfortunately some of these paintings find their way into the mainstream art market. Right now it's clear that certain individuals are prepared to place fakes for sale, making handsome profits.
Alone this would be of concern, but Four Corners reporter Quentin McDermott investigates the role of gallery owners in the marketing and sale of fakes. It's now clear that, either knowingly or unknowingly, a number of high profile gallery owners have been responsible for selling paintings worth thousands of dollars, with a question mark over their authenticity.
. . .

None of this is good news for art lovers. It's now clear consumers have to be very careful who they deal with, what kind of paintings they buy and who has authenticated them.
This crisis of confidence has led some artists to demand any work sold under false pretences to be destroyed. Others believe there should be an art register of forged works, once they are detected, that could then be accessed by dealers and the general public.
"FAKE!" will be broadcast at 8.30pm on Monday 8 June on ABC1. It is replayed at 11.35pm on Tuesday 9 June.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

3,000 Object Slated for Return to Italy

2009-06-08T14:57:00Z

Today the FBI and the Berwyn Police Department will hold a news conference announcing the return of 3,000 religious objects, books, and antiquities that were illegally removed from Italy and found in a home in Berwyn. This comes two years after John Sisto's, the homeowner, died. On Friday the FBI said "many of the items ... were determined to have been removed illegally from Italy and will be repatriated to Italian authorities later next week."

"The house was filled with old books . . . ," said Berwyn Police Chief William Kushner. "I am told that there are also papal documents dating back to the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries."

Authorities have been researching the authenticity of the items and trying to determining how Sisto came to have them.

"We can't question a dead man," said Kushner. "We are just going to return the items to the Italian authorities."
Sisto was born in Bari, Italy and immigrated to the United States at 29. After the items were discovered in his home in March 2007, the tidy brick bungalow was under constant protection by police for 15 days.

FBI agents contacted Italian authorities, and agents specializing in stolen art were seen entering the home. Rumors that the Swiss Guards of Vatican City were coming to the working-class suburb to collect their items caused media and neighbors to swarm the block for days, but the Swiss Guards never came.

When he lived in Chicago in 1958, Sisto had complained that someone stole 72 rare books worth $40,000 from the basement of his home. Many of them were later recovered.

He told police the books were given to him by his father, Giuseppe Sisto, a history and geography professor at the University of Bari.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

"Peru is rightful owner of artifacts"

2009-06-08T15:55:00Z

So argues former First-Lady of Peru Eliane Karp-Toledo in an Op-Ed today in the Miami Herald (for a brief discussion of another Op-Ed in the NY Times, see here). She discusses the ongoing dispute between Yale and Peru over objects taken from Peru by Hiram Bingham, and effectively communicates Peru's position—and only their position. Though I think it is reasonable to criticize some of the actions of Yale University since they have held the objects, Karp-Toledo does her argument a disservice I think by ignoring some very real and well-founded differences of opinion between Yale and Peru.

For example, she argues "Many years of frustrated negotiations, and Yale's presentation of an insensitive 'Memorandum of Understanding' in 2007, finally led the Republic of Peru to file a lawsuit against Yale in the District Court for Washington, D.C., in December 2008." Yet I'm not really sure how that memorandum was "insensitive"; nor does Karp-Toledo really tell us why. That agreement, now apparently abandoned, aimed at creating a kind of lease which would have created a collaborative relationship between Yale and Peru. It would have been similar in form perhaps to the agreements Italy has been promulgating with many institutions forced to return looted antiquities. Peru would have received title to all the objects, with many remaining in Connecticut. There would have been an international traveling exhibition, and proceeds would help build a much-needed new museum and research center in Cuzco. Yale also would have provided funds to establish a scholarly exchange program. As Yale president Richard C. Levin said at the time, "We aim to create a new model for resolving competing interests in cultural property,... This can best be achieved by building a collaborative relationship — one which involves scholars and researchers from Yale and Peru — that serves science and human understanding." I'm afraid I don't see how this arrangement was "insensitive".

Another point of contention is where these objects may be stored if they are returned. Though she points out the Royal Tombs Museum of Sipán (pictured here), she has little to say about the current exhibition near Machu Picchu at Aguas Calientes. An expanded center such as the one Yale had offered would seem to be badly needed, as there are indications the current museum near the Aguas Calientes train station is not fit for purpose, according to Arthur Lubow in a long piece in the NY Times Magazine:

The doors were open to the air, which was moist from the nearby river, and the sole official was a caretaker who sold tickets and then exited the building. On display in the attractive (if unguarded) museum are the finds that Peruvian archaeologists have made at Machu Picchu in the years since Bingham’s excavations.

I think it is worth asking at this point, how much of the ongoing dispute is a product of the effort to continue the Indigenous rights movement in Peru, irrespective of whether it is actually creating a better place to display these objects, and display them to the public—whether that is in the US or Peru? I think that collaboration is a far better model, but I'm not sure Karp-Toedo has provided and argument which would call for zero collaboration. Instead she seems eager to punish Yale and Hiram Bingham for taking Peru's heritage. A claim I think which is not supported by the facts as we know them. Though there are certainly indications that these objects should have been returned to Peru long ago, they were not, perhaps because of intervening events (America's involvement in WWI may have provided a distraction), neglect, negligence or even bad faith.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Stolen Antiquities Recovered With the Help of the Art Loss Register

2009-06-02T21:28:00Z

The Art Loss Register—though not a cure-all for what ails the antiquities trade—is an invaluable tool for the recovery of stolen objects so long as they have been documented and reported. I have received a couple of press releases from the ALR highlighting recent recoveries of antiquities. Though it cannot help aid the recovery of antiquities which have never been documented, it can help in the recovery of stolen antiquities which have been documented and reported missing, underscoring the need I think for museums and nations of origin to do a better job documenting and reporting the stores of objects which they currently have. A couple recent seizures by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) highlight this.

Yesterday ICE announced a wall panel fresco which had been stolen in 1997 was recovered. I found the history of the site interesting:

The panel, rectangular with a white background depicting a female minister, white wash on plaster with a modern wooden frame, was previously located at the excavation office in Pompeii and was reported stolen with five other fresco panels on June 26, 1997.

The investigation revealed that, between 1903 and 1904, the Italian government authorized a farmer, Giuseppe De Martino, to restore his farmhouse, which was located on an archeological site in Boscoreale, province of Naples. During the restoration, six important frescos, originating from Pompeii were found.

On July 12, 1957, the Government of Italy purchased the frescos. On June 26, 1997, after the completion of work to the excavation site, the Italian government observed that the six frescos were missing and subsequently reported the theft.

This follows soon after the recovery of seven Egyptian antiquities which had been stolen from the Bijbels Museum in Amsterdam in 2007:

The investigation received significant help from the Art Loss Register (ALR) of New York, an organization that maintains a database of stolen works of art. The ALR discovered the artifacts at the Manhattan auction house, which turned the artifacts over to the Register and ICE agents.

One of the pieces recovered is a 7-inch-high depiction of a mummy with arms folded over the chest and hoes in each hand. It dates to between 1307 and 1070 B.C. The other recovered artifacts were an bronze figure of Imhotep, artchitect of the first pyramid, and one of Hapokrates, and an Egyptian painted Wood Osiris, all dating as far back as 712 B.C.

"The recovery of these artifacts sends a strong message to thieves that the market to sell stolen antiquities in the United States is freezing up." said Peter J. Smith, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in New York. "ICE is committed to working closely with foreign governments and organizations like the ALR to recover priceless works of art and antiquities so they can be returned to their rightful owners."

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

MFA Boston Prevails in Nazi-era Declaratory Judgment

2009-06-01T20:28:00Z

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has prevailed in its suit against Dr. Claudia Seger-Tomschitz, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston v. Seger-Thomschitz, No. 08-10097-RWZ (D. Mass. 2009).

At issue was this work, "Two Nudes (Lovers)" by Oskar Kokoschka, 1913. The work has been on display "almost continuosly" since 1973 according to the Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers.

The museum brought suit to preclude any potential restitution suit, essentially asking the court to declare it the rightful owner of the work. The Museum brought suit back in January 2008, and in the complaint argued the "painting was never confiscated by the Nazis, was never sold by force as a result of Nazi persecution, and was not otherwise taken".

The potential claimant, Claudia Seger-Thomschitz, claimed the painting was sold under duress by Oskar Reichel a physician and gallery owner in Austria. The work had been consigned on several occasions to an art dealer, Otto Kallir who owned the Neue Galerie in Vienna. Kallir later left Vienna, eventually coming to New York, and he brought this and some other works of art with him. He sent money to Reichel's sons at this point. In 1939, the work was sent to Paris; in 1945 it was sold to a New York dealer for $1,500; Sarah Blodgett purchased the work in the 1940s; she gave the work to the MFA Boston in 1972.

District Judge Rya Zobel held:

[A]lthough the Reichel family never claimed compensation for any of the Kokoschka works that had been transferred to Kallir for sale, it did claim restitution for artwork and property that had been stolen by the Nazis.

[T]he Reichel family never attempted to recover the painting after WWII, and there is no evidence that it believed the transfer was not legitimate.

The evidence is undisputed that the members of the Reichel family had sufficient knowledge of Reichel’s ownership and transfer of the painting.

Dr. Seger-Thomschitz also ―waited more than three years to assert her claim after she was on inquiry notice of her possible right to the Painting…The information necessary to pursue her claim was readily available to both [Dr. Seger-Thomschitz] and her counsel at that time.

[T]he delay in bringing suit will prejudice the MFA because all of the witnesses with actual knowledge of the transfer are deceased.

Any claim by Dr. Seger-Thomschitz that Oskar Reichel was misled when he transferred the painting to Otto Kallir in 1939 was ―pure speculation.

The court has held that the claimant had opportunities to seek title to the work, but did not, and as a consequence the limitations period has run. Malcolm Rogers, Director of the MFA Boston stated “The MFA conducted a year and a half long comprehensive investigation of the work’s provenance, seeking documentation of the various transactions and changes of ownership in the painting’s almost 100-year history. We are satisfied and grateful that the judge has reaffirmed the Museum’s rightful ownership of the work.”

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Attorney: Yale turned blind eye when acquiring Van Gogh painting

2009-06-03T17:54:00Z

A descendant of the owner of a famous Vincent Van Gogh painting says Yale University should have known the painting was stolen when it acquired it.